Automated banking machines may include a card reader that operates to read data from a data bearing record such as a user card. Automated banking machines may operate to cause the data read from the card to be compared with other computer stored data related to the card bearer or the bearer's financial accounts. The machine operates in response to the comparison determining that the bearer record corresponds to an authorized user and/or a financial account, to carry out at least one transaction which may be operative to transfer value to or from at least one account. A record of the transaction is also often printed through operation of the automated banking machine and provided to the user. Automated banking machines may be used to carry out transactions such as dispensing cash, the making of deposits, the transfer of funds between accounts, and account balance inquiries. The types of banking transactions that may be carried out are determined by the capabilities of the particular banking machine and system, as well as the programming of the institution operating the machine.
Other types of automated banking machines may be operated by merchants to carry out commercial transactions. These transactions may include, for example, the acceptance of deposit bags, the receipt of checks or other financial instruments, the dispensing of rolled coin, or other transactions required by merchants. Still other types of automated banking machines may be used by service providers in a transaction environment such as a bank to carry out financial transactions. Such transactions may include for example, the counting and storage of currency notes or other financial instrument sheets, the dispensing of notes or other sheets, the imaging of checks or other financial instruments, and other types of transactions. For purposes of this disclosure an automated banking machine or an automated teller machine (ATM) shall be deemed to include any machine that may be used to carry out transactions involving automated transfers of value.
When banks are open for business, customers begin to enter the bank. The bank usually has no advance notice when a banking customer is going to enter the bank or how many customers will enter the bank for any given time period. At the time a banking customer enters a bank the bank has no way of knowing which type of transaction the banking customer is going to request, or if the banking customer will be requesting multiple transactions. If all customers currently in a bank approach the teller or any other human or machine resource of the bank at the same time, that banking resource may become overburdened and unable to process all the banking customer requests in a timely matter. Long wait times may occur and the banking customers at the end of a line for a particular banking service may have a negative banking experience.
When a banking customer enters a bank, he may not know where to proceed to conduct a particular banking transaction. The banking customer may need to resort to looking for signs pointing him to the area of the bank to conduct the particular transaction he desires to conduct. Alternatively, the banking customer may need to resort to looking for a map of the banking branch or facility so he may determine from a map where to conduct his transaction.
When a banking customer enters a bank branch, he often will want to conduct multiple transactions. The banking customer may have no way of knowing which bank resources are busy and which are available. The banking customer may just have to guess or just pick the transaction to conduct first by random thought process. If the banking customer guesses in a way that directs him to a resource for which there is a long wait, he will spend more time to complete his transactions.
Often when the banking customer needs to personally speak with a person who has more than just clerical authority, such as a banking officer, that officer may be busy. The banking customer may need to wait in a waiting area. The banking customer may leave the waiting area to talk with a friend, use the restroom, or simply get tired and leave the bank. Also, when the busy banking officer becomes free, the officer may go to the waiting area to greet the banking customer waiting to see them. However, because the bank officer often does not know what the waiting banking customer looks like, the bank officer needs to resort to calling the customer's name near the waiting area. The banking officer often may not have any way of knowing if the banking customer has left the waiting area or the bank.
For many banking transactions such as opening a new account, banking customers need to provide the bank information about themselves. Typically, a banking officer may call the banking customer to the banking officer's desk and then begin to ask the banking customer a lot of questions. For example, the bank officer may ask the banking customer for the customer's name, address, phone numbers, place of employment, who in the family may access the account, and then a series of questions about what type of account the customer is interested in opening. Sometimes as the banking customer provides the information to a banking officer, mistakes are made when the banking officer enters the banking customer information into the banking computer systems. The officer may hit the wrong keyboard key, and because the banking customer may not be looking at the computer screen the officer is looking at, the error goes undetected. Other banking customers may speak with an accent that is hard for the banking officer to understand, so errors may be entered into the banking computer system because of a misunderstanding between the banking customer and banking officer.
Bank tellers and officers often need to follow a precise sequence of events to properly process a banking customer banking request. There may be a certain sequence of steps to authenticating checks and a different sequence of steps to issue a certificate of deposit. Because banking employees need to follow many different sequences for many different types of banking transactions, sometimes steps are omitted or performed incorrectly. Often several different forms are filled out for each of a variety of banking transactions. Because banking employees need to know which of several forms correspond with each transaction, mistakes are made by forgetting to fill out a form, filling out the wrong form or making a mistake while filling out a form.
Banking machines, systems, and customer service may benefit from improvements.